The Girl at Grimmauld Place
by PrincessDaydream77
Summary: Before his incarceration in Azkaban, Sirius Black had had an almost perfect life. He had his friends and the woman he loved, but he lost it all. So, how did he react when he returned home to find a remainder of his once perfect life in the girl at Grimmauld Place?
1. Reflecting by the Moonlight

The Girl at Grimmauld Place

Summary: Before his incarceration in Azkaban, Sirius Black had had an almost perfect life. He had his friends and the woman he loved, but he lost it all. So, how did he react when he returned home to find a remainder of his once perfect life in the girl at Grimmauld Place?

Disclaimer: I only own Charlotte, nothing else.

Chapter One

As the early winter's sunset fell on 12 Grimmauld Place, Harry Potter stepped out into the extensive gardens, one destination in particular on his mind. He had made a near daily pilgrimage to the rose plot at the end of the garden ever since that terrible night, and even the harsh winds of December could not stop him from doing so again.

Finally, after half a dozen minutes of weaving his way through wild mazes and overgrown hedgerows, the young man reached the sacred place, sighing a little in both relief and sorrow as his task was completed.

It was truly beautiful, to any eye, in stark contrast to the rest of the gardens, which were as dark and unruly as the house itself. The roses were in every colour that Harry had ever seen roses to be. Blooms of red, pink, white and yellow surrounded him, lifting tenfold the atmosphere of the place he was in.

Glancing through the roses to the only bare patches of earth in the garden, Harry felt his vision clouded by tears, as it always was when he was there. It was a bittersweet feeling, but one that Harry felt a moral duty to repeat, as he had been the cause of his visits, after all.

Three large curved stones stood proudly out of the earth, polished and gleaming with the colours of the day's end, while the silver writing gleamed almost ethereally in the approaching moonlight. Harry read each stone over and over through his tears. He read the one on the right hand side and paid little heed to it. He had never known her, so he could not truly be remorseful, other than for the people she had left behind. Moving his gaze to the one on the left, the tears grew in intensity. In truth, he had never really known him either, though he certainly should have done. When Death snatched him away, Harry had been distraught. But he had not really felt any guilt. He had never known what guilt truly was until the third of them had died.

He began to read the polished stone of the third, barely able to see it through the tears in his eyes, which he wiped away almost ferociously, crying out in anguish as more just replaced them. It took him a good ten minutes before the tears began to clear. He had never cried for so long in his life, but maybe that was why. He was not just crying for the people at rest in the garden, he was crying for them all.

At this realisation, Harry's gaze turned slowly back to the headstone, which was now glittering in the new moonlight. It was still relatively new itself, only being seven months old, and had not seen as much wear as the others. '_That practically makes it worse_.' Harry thought in anguish, reaching out to brush the silver lettering with his hand. He pulled away from it at once, as if he had been burnt, though the stone was as cold as the night's chill.

Blinking back his tears as it became second nature, Harry glanced back down to the silver script, reading each swirl and swoop of the letters as they formed words. The words that had saved his life, and the words that had torn it apart.

_Here lies Charlotte Isabella Bayley-Black,  
14th February 1983 - 2nd May 1998  
Who died to protect those that she called her friends,  
Staring evil directly in the face even as it snatched away those closest to her,  
May she rest in peace, and be with her parents at last._

Harry smiled a little as he read the inscription of the gravestone, not because of the memory of her death, but that of her life, or what little she had to live of it. Even at the tender age at which she had died, while she was alive, Charlotte had been the bravest girl Harry had ever known. She still was.

Seeing the dates written on the stone, Harry reminisced on the time when the tale of her life had been told to him, the life that filled the sparse gaps between the dates. Sirius, Remus Lupin and many others had described the girl's life to him, including Charlotte herself, during the little time he had known her. It was a beautiful story, one that had ended far too soon.

She hadn't deserved to die, not in the slightest. If he thought about it, in the time he had known her, Harry had never known Charlotte to do anything wrong. She had never once been selfish, rude or arrogant. She had always been the one to resolve a conflict, always put others before herself. That was essentially why she lay at rest.

With a watery smile on his face as he remembered the girl, Harry sat down upon the ground, his back against the tree that sheltered the gravestones from the winter. In the glinting silver of the moonlight, Harry could remember everything. He could still remember the first time he met Charlotte, could remember the pictures he had seen of the girl as a child. He could remember the smile she had given him as she cast her first Patronus charm in the DA, the defiance in her eyes as she stared at Voldemort's army and the tears in them as she watched her father fall. But most painfully of all, Harry could remember the look of determination as she had hurtled towards Voldemort, the fear as she held the spell against him, and his own scream as she had fallen.

Sighing, Harry closed his eyes, drifting off to sleep. As he slept, he dreamt of Charlotte.

A/N: This is not a one-shot, the next chapter will be up soon, but I really need to know what you think. Just so you know as well, with chapter two, it all goes back to the beginning of her life, then ends just after her death. It's like a cycle. Please review!


	2. Daydreams Come True

Chapter Two

A/N: Thanks to xxSiriusxxforeverxx, and dream-on-sunday for reviewing.

The sun was waiting to rise above London, as Isabella Bayley-Black awoke from her sleep. It had not been the warm rays that had awoken her, as she had been drawn from the clutches of sleep hours ago, but it had been the chink of light streaming through the gap in the curtains that had alerted her to the presence of the dawn.

With a smile that followed a well concealed yawn, Isabella rolled onto her side, propping her side of her head up with an arm as she watched her oblivious husband sleep peacefully.

Though she would never admit it to the man himself, the brunette could still hardly believe her luck. During her time at Hogwarts, she had been in the same year as the dashing young man, and in Gryffindor with him as well. She had daydreamt about him for hours on end, and had scribbled his name across the covers of most of her school journals. He had always been her one and only fantasy. Yes, she had wanted to be Mrs. Sirius Black since the day she had first met him.

And now she was. It was truly like a dream, which Isabella would have thought it was, if she hadn't known for certain that she had just wakened from one.

A smile surfaced on her youthful face as she felt rather than saw a pair of arms wrapping around her waist. It seemed that she was not the only one that had awoken.

"Morning, Issy." came a voice, the one which belonged to the owner of the strong arms.

"Morning, Siri." she responded, leaning over to peck the man on the cheek, hardly being surprised when he turned his head to grasp her lips with his, though not complaining about the action either. "You're awake early. For you, anyway. It isn't even half past ten yet!"

"You cheeky…!" he told his wife, leaning over to wrap his arms around her, stroking his fingers alternately along her side, where he knew she was extremely ticklish. The attempts were successful, as she doubled over, shrieking and laughing in an attempt to pull him away from her.

"Stop it! Siri, stop it! I give in, just stop!" she shrieked, crying out with laughter as her husband finally ceased his actions. They both remained laughing for the next couple of minutes, before they fell back into their pillows, breathing heavily from their laughs, arms wrapped tightly around each other. They stayed there for quite a while, just content to be together.

"Issy, would you ever want to have children?" Sirius said, turning his head to the side to gauge his wife's reaction to the question before she spoke. He needn't have waited long, as it was barely a couple of moments later when she gave her response.

"Ever since I was a little girl, I always wanted to have a child. A tiny little person for me to dote on, to take care, to love unconditionally and to love me back. I just always wanted to be a mother." Isabella revealed, gazing off slightly into space as she remembered her childhood wishes. This did not go unnoticed by her husband, who playfully nudged her in the arm, bringing her back to reality with a sigh. "What about you?"

"Well, having children was always drilled into me as a boy by my mother, so that I could keep the line going, and so the inheritance wouldn't pass down to the son of one of my cousins. I never understood why she hated the girls, really, but there you go. Still, I'd never really thought about it being voluntary, just a kind of duty." the man responded, his cheeky smile faltering a little at the mention of the family he used to know. "But now… I think I would like a baby, yeah."

The silence fell once again, Isabella offering no response to the statement other than the head she laid down on the man's shoulder, offering him comfort while drawing some from him in return.

"What would you call a baby, if we had one?" asked Isabella, not moving her head at all.

"I don't know, really. I never actually thought about names, or anything like that." the man admitted, shrugging his shoulders slightly. "Although I did promise James that if I had a boy, I'd name him Jamie."

"After him, naturally." Issy laughed, though somehow managing to sigh as she did so. She knew very well that James Potter could be uncontrollably arrogant, having been good friends with Lily Evans at school. "How Lily sustained enough brain damage to marry James that day, I will never know."

After this jestingly slanderous comment aimed at his best friend, Issy had expected Sirius to tell her off, to sigh a little even. What she had not expected was the man laughing so harshly that he ended up almost falling off the bed.

"Fair enough, I see your point! He isn't the most humble of people, James. I just he doesn't pass that on to Harry." Both of their faces softened at the mention of their godson, only one year old.

"No. Lily will ground him enough so that that doesn't happen. I trust her." Issy stated, stating the obvious as far as Sirius was concerned.

"What would you call the baby, then, Issy?" the man questioned, hardly finishing his sentence before she began to say hers.

"Well, that's easy. Ever since I was little, I wanted a baby girl called Charlotte. I came across the name in a fairytale once, and I fell in love with it." By the time her rushed statement was completed, a startling blush was covering her pale cheeks. Sirius laughed a touch at this, bringing his hand up to rest at the side of her face.

"So… it's either baby Jamie, or baby Charlotte. Either way-" her husband began, but was cut off when Issy crashed her lips to his, stroking his hair as he began to kiss back. They broke away after a moment, struggling to catch their breath. "Oh, and Issy?"

"Yes?" she asked, wondering what could possibly be so important that it had interrupted something that was also imperative.

"Happy Hallowe'en."

A/N: Uh oh! Please review!


	3. Discovering a Change

Chapter Three

A/N: Thank you to TheDoctor'sAmazingCompanion, Elphaba01 and BellatrixBlackLestrangeRiddle for reviewing the last chapter.

Despite the amount of time that had passed, Issy still could not believe it. In just twenty four short hours, her life had been turned upside down and destroyed, and all because one terrible man was fearful of not being the most powerful in the world.

It was almost unbelievable for anyone, just how much it all had changed. Her best friends murdered, her godson an orphan, and her darling Sirius… he had been taken away from her.

After the tragedy at Godric's Hollow, the Aurors had been summoned immediately to the scene, where they could find only a slight amount of evidence pointing to who had committed the crime. By the time the morning had come, all that remained was a single finger, a street of dead Muggles and Sirius… laughing dementedly, even as he was carried away.

Even though he was merely being held for questioning, and that they had no proof that he was responsible for the murders, Issy still felt that there was something not quite right about this. '_He won't come back this time.'_ she thought, a tear streaking her face. '_They have no one else to blame, so they've pinned it onto my husband. It just isn't fair, and there's nothing I can do.'_

He was going to Azkaban, that much the woman knew, and there was nothing more that could be done by her to prevent it. It was all in the hands of the judge and jury, all of whom believed that her darling Sirius was the murderer of a street full of Muggles. If only she could tell them, tell them what she knew, but she couldn't. Even if she could, they would never listen to her. In the eyes of the Ministry, she was just a stupid young woman too madly in love to care. '_Maybe that is what I am.'_ she thought.

Suddenly, she felt a jerking in her stomach, like nothing she had ever felt before. At first, she thought that she might be ill, but the feeling was not similar to any illness she knew of, or had been exposed to. Then she wondered whether she had just gotten cramp for a moment, but there was no pain. There was only one other possible explanation. One that Issy would never have considered before.

Rising from the window ledge she had been sat on, Issy hurried over to the fireplace and dipped her hand into the bowl of Floo powder that rested on the mantelpiece, throwing it hurriedly into the flames. The moment they began to glow emerald, she leant forward and pushed her head through the fire.

As her hair tumbled through and onto the other side of the grate, Issy could see a sparsely furnished room, one that she recognised clearly. However, one that she recognised even more clearly was the man that lay on the small bed in the corner of the room.

"Remus!" the woman exclaimed without hesitation, prompting the man to jerk his head upwards and collide it with the wall, after which he uttered a string of foul words that made Issy both blush and giggle, as had always been the way when Remus behaved in such an uncharacteristically rude manner.

"Issy?" he questioned, still rubbing the back of his aching head. "What's the matter?"

"Can you come over here, please?" she asked him, biting her lip in between the two parts of the request, something which she often did when nervous about making a request. "I need to talk to you, about something important."

Remus let out a huge sigh, mixed between reluctance and annoyance, but the man rose quickly from his bed with a smile on his face as he looked towards his old friend. "I'll be around in a couple of minutes." he promised.

As soon as she had received his answer, Issy retreated back to her own flat, anxiously awaiting the man's arrival. She did not have to wait long as, just as he promised, Remus arrived just two minutes later.

"So, what's the matter?" he asked, sitting down beside the woman on the sofa. "Issy? What's wrong?"

"Well…" she began, suddenly not quite sure as to what to say. "I've found out something. Something that might be quite important."

"What is it?" Remus pressed, seeming both interested and worried, in equal measures, at his friend's abnormal behaviour. Issy was never as unsure of herself as she seemed to be currently.

The girl herself felt her head begin to spin slightly, as if she was falling from an airplane at hundreds of feet from the ground, and she was shaking so violently that the other fabric of the seat shook along with her. She had been so determined to inform her friend of the change she had discovered, but now she suddenly wished that she had not done so.

"I…" she began, but found that she could not go any further. Tears were streaking down her face, and through her blurred vision, she could just about make out the shape of Remus leaning towards her, and felt as he wrapped a comforting arm around her shoulders.

"Issy, it's alright." he told the brunette, pulling her close to him in an effort to calm her a little. Though it took several dozen seconds to do so, his attempts were eventually successful, and Issy calmed enough to be able to speak once again.

"I'm sorry, Remus. It's just been quite difficult today, what with Sirius and everything. Actually, that was what I wanted to talk to you about, really." she replied to the man, raising her gaze from where it had rested in her lap. Intrigued, Remus moved away from her slightly, so that he could see her better.

"What's happened?" he questioned her, realising that he had reverted back to the question he had originally asked. But this thought flew to the back of his mind when Issy gave him his answer at last.

"I'm pregnant."

A/N: Looks like Charlotte may be making an appearance quite soon. Please review!


	4. The Birth and Death of a New Star

Chapter Four

A/N: Thanks to TheDoctor'sAmazingCompanion for reviewing my last chapter. You're great!

Four months had passed since Issy had confessed her condition to Remus, and she had still hardly become accustomed to the idea of becoming a mother.

It had turned out that, though she only noticed at the very beginning of November, the woman was at the time actually mid-way through her first trimester, and well into her second month of pregnancy. Now, she was almost seven months through her gestation period, and still fearful of what motherhood would mean for her.

When she had imagined as a child growing up to be a mother, this had not been what she had envisioned at all. She had always thought that she would live in a grand spacious home, with a huge garden and a husband arriving home to side next to her for dinner, placing his hand on her stomach to feel the baby kick beneath his fingers. She had never wanted a small, lonely flat, with no garden and her husband imprisoned in Azkaban for a crime he would never have thought of committing. Everything had gone so utterly wrong, and there was nothing that could be done about it.

Remus had told her constantly, as had her sister, Olivia, that there was no point moping around after Sirius when she had a child that desperately needed her, even more so than she needed her husband, and Issy had seen almost immediately that she was absolutely right. While she may not want to and it may pain her to do it, the young woman could survive quite easily without the man she had married, while the child she carried inside her womb could not survive the same way without it's mother. '_The child is my first priority now, and has to remain so for the rest of my life.'_ Issy told herself, realising that it was something she should have discovered a long time ago.

As the moonlight fell upon the clock, which showed that it was a quarter to twelve o'clock, the woman had lain in bed that night, thinking of Sirius and how he would have reacted to their child, when a sharp pain coursed through her abdomen. It was like nothing she had ever felt before, more like a warning from her own body than anything else. As soon as she had identified it, Issy knew exactly what the pain was.

Groaning loudly into the empty room as she attempted to rise from the bed, she turned and saw what she had feared. The sheets of the bed were soaked through, right under the place where she had lain, and the hem of her nightdress was sodden as well. The pain was getting harsher now, and she was struggling to even walk properly. There was a spark of magic coursing through her stomach, as if the baby itself was attempting to cast a spell to get out of her body.

Ignoring all of these factors as best she could, the brunette looked into the bowl that lay on top of the mantelpiece. To her despair, it was empty. There was no Floo powder left inside of it at all, meaning that Issy could not contact Remus, as she had wanted to. She could not Apparate, as the risk of splinching a child during pregnancy was very high, and increased tenfold during labour, what she now knew the pains to be. She was on her own.

Her only idea was a desperate one, and so Issy reached over to grab her wand, which she kept on her bedside table out of habit. She filled her minds with thoughts of the night Sirius had asked for her hand in marriage, at the Hallowe'en Ball Hogwarts had held during their final year at the school. She had dressed as Rowena Ravenclaw and he as Godric Gryffindor, and had dropped to one knee at the end of the waltz, clutching a shining golden band in his fingers, a ring that she still wore at that moment. She immersed herself in the memory, in the happiness of the time, before speaking an incantation that she had never used before, due to its not being taught at Hogwarts in the time that she had studied.

"_Expecto Patronum."_ she spoke clearly, thinking of the home that Remus shared with his parents, her thoughts following the Patronus as the glimmering spectral dog leapt from the window, crossing the city in search for its recipient. '_Please come, Remus. Please. I need your help. Please.'_

After five minutes had passed, Issy had begun to lose hope in her charm, as Remus had still not arrived, and showed no sign of being near. However, as the door burst open, revealing the panting man, whose eyes open wide at the sight of his friend, biting her lip to prevent her from screaming out in agony. The magic from within her seemed to be burning the inside of her, scorching the lining of her stomach.

"Issy?" Remus questioned, running to her side and wiping the sweat from her brow with a cloth that lay on her bedside. "Issy, what's happened?"

"Remus, don't you think it's a bit obvious?!" she cried out, gritting her teeth once again. Nodding slightly, as if to acknowledge the fact that he was in the wrong in her eyes, the shaggy haired man drew out his own wand, casting a quick diagnostic spell. The results had him almost as close to crying out as she was.

"What is it?" she asked, breathing heavily between each word. "Remus, what is happening?"

"You are having the baby. In about two minutes, according to this spell." he answered, blinking rapidly, to ascertain whether or not he was seeing things in the heat of the moment. But he was not, as he was soon informed by the guttural scream Issy let out, the head of a baby suddenly appearing. "Or maybe now."

"Remus! Remus, I want Sirius!" she sobbed, biting her lip so harshly against the pain that she nearly severed the skin.

"I know, but he can't be here, Issy!" Remus told his friend, in an attempt to bring her back to reality. "Just keep going! One more should do it!"

In truth, the man had no clue what to do when it came to delivering a child, but he seemed to have judged correctly. One more push and the baby was born, crying the moment it left its mother's body. Seeing no other option of what to do, Remus cast a couple of spells to clean the baby and sever the cord. After quickly checking the fact he would report back, a flush of embarrassment colouring his face, Remus wrapped the baby in a blanket that had laid on the windowsill.

"It's a girl, Issy." he told her with a smile, though she could not see that smile, as his back was to his friend.

"Tell her I love her." came a weak whisper from the bed, one that he could barely recognise as being of the voice of Isabella Bayley-Black, and so he turned.

"Tell her yourself…" he began, his smile becoming cheeky, but it fell the moment he saw the face of the brunette who had just given birth. Her eyes were open, but not seeming to see. Her mouth was smiling, but not with a true depth. Her arms were reached out to welcome her daughter into the world, but rested limply on the sheets.

As cries echoed through the silence of the room, both of the child and of the man that held her, the early morning was made aware of the tragedy that had occurred just a few moments after midnight had struck.

Isabella Bayley-Black was dead.

A/N: I'm so sorry to those of you that loved her (I did too!), but it was important for the storyline that Issy had to die. I will explain the cause of her death in the next chapter. RIP Issy, and please review.


	5. Charlotte Isabella

Chapter Five

A/N: Thanks to TheDoctor'sAmazingCompanion for reviewing the previous chapter.

Stood by the window, overlooking the dark clouds of the day that was dawning behind them, Remus remained in the same position as he had done when his dear friend had passed away, only a few hours previously.

Though he had come to terms with Sirius' imprisonment fairly quickly, the man could not force himself to believe that a kind, compassionate young woman like Issy had died in such terrible circumstances, and so suddenly as well. It would seem to be beyond belief for almost any who knew her, and he knew that he would soon have to face the awful task of informing her family, or the little who remained of them. He supposed that he should also inform the Blacks of the birth of Sirius' daughter, but he doubted they would wish to know. He doubted they would care even if they were aware of the fact.

A sudden cry broke through the silence, one that was not of an adult man, but of a baby girl. Immediately, Remus moved to the side of the cradle, a beautifully carved piece of mahogany that her mother had purchased when she had realised she was pregnant. He had recalled coming to see her, in order to congratulate her on her news, only to find her sobbing that this should have been something which she and her husband had done together, as would the next seven months be. However, she had to make do, and that was what she had done, admirably so in the eyes of Remus, as the task she had accomplished was not an easy one. If only she had lived to see the beauty that that strength had gifted to the world.

The baby in the cot had awoken with a start, suddenly seeming to have realised that her mother was not there to comfort her, and crying out for someone, anyone, that would. Of course, as that obligation had fallen to Remus for the time being, the man scooped up the child, still swaddled in blankets, and held her in his arms, trying his upmost to be more successful with soothing her pain than he had been soothing his own. He knew, though, that the agony she felt could not be quenched, as Isabella lay dead in a bedroom only a couple of dozen feet from where they stood, but he tried nonetheless. '_Perhaps she doesn't know what has happened as certainly as I do.'_ he thought to himself. Even then, he knew he was wrong.

"Ssh, little one." the man sighed, as he cradled the babe. "I'm here for you. There's no need to cry."

Even as he spoke, the man knew how much of a lie he was telling to the innocent little girl. She had plenty of reasons to cry, more than any other child he knew of. True, she had blankets and food and drink aplenty, but her mother had died before she had even held her daughter in her arms, while her father had been sentenced to a life imprisonment in Azkaban, and would be at the mercy of the Dementors until he died, with no knowledge of his daughter to keep him from insanity.

As he rocked her from side to side, the young girl ceased her crying, though her lip still trembled a little, as she lingered on the precipice of tears. Remus' comforting techniques had seemed to prevail more on his best friend's daughter than on himself, which was lucky, as the man was old enough to be able to cope with sorrow, while the baby in his arms did not have that luxury, having the opinion that crying would prompt someone to make it better, when that could not be done for her, as no one could wake the dead, even for a crying child who merely wanted their mother.

Thinking of the fact that her parents could not look after her, and that neither of them could ever possibly do so, Remus turned his mind to the question of who would do so. During her pregnancy, Issy had named him as the baby's godfather, alongside Andromeda Tonks and Issy's sister, Olivia, whom had always been mentioned by Sirius as being a brilliant mother and most probably being an equally brilliant godmother. Judging by his irresponsibility in the role of the godfather of James and Lily's son, Harry, the majority of the Marauders, spouses included, had had to refrain from laughing at the idea of the value he had placed on his judgement at the time. By the end of the conversation, even Padfoot himself had been in stitches. How things had changed.

'_I suppose that I'll have to go and see Andromeda tomorrow, after I've seen Olivia.'_ he thought. In truth, he was extremely nervous about the meetings, particularly the one with Olivia that would be his first task in the later morning, as he had never met any of his best friend's wife's family. He had decided that he must go and see them, as they were not yet aware of the death that had occurred in the family, and he would prefer that they were notified of the fact by someone who had known Isabella, rather than a stranger from the Ministry of Magic who was merely paid to deliver the news before disappearing to another household to do the same. He would not have wanted that for any of his family, despite the fact that he did not get on well with them at all, and Issy was just as much his family as Sirius was. He wanted the best for her.

With a sigh, Remus placed the little girl down in her cradle, tucking her blankets around her from where they had been rumpled by him having picked her up. As her eyes closed and she drifted off into the pleasant darkness of sleep, despite the sun rising in the sky, the man sighed, as he read the piece of swirling script, engraved into the wood, within the heart carved at the end of the bed. It was the only piece of influence that poor Issy had had, and that she would ever have.

_Charlotte Isabella._

A/N: I just wanted to get this up as soon as I could, to fill the slight hole that Issy's death may have left in some of your hearts, as it did mine. However, I think that I may have made it worse with this one! Oh, well, please review!


	6. Duty and Decisions

Chapter Six

A/N: Thank you to .7 for reviewing the last chapter.

As evening dawned once again, Remus placed the Moses basket down on the porch of the Tonks household, where he had come to see Andromeda, about the matter of the child that lay in the basket, sleeping peacefully, despite the constant movement throughout the day. '_She must be exhausted.'_ he had thought, gazing down at the girl's eyelids, which fluttered a little as she dreamt. '_Especially given that she did not sleep at all last night, her first night in this world.'_

With a slight sigh, he rapped on the door with his knuckles, beginning to feel the harsh cold of February more than he had done before. It was midway through the month, and though spring was coming, it did not seem to be coming fast enough, as the weather was harsher than it had been for the whole season. If he had been a believer in omens, he might have said that the change in weather represented the change in the world, the loss of a mother and gain of a child who would never know her. But he was not, and believed only in what his eyes told him. It was not a sign, or an omen, or a message. It was merely winter.

Light flooded the doorway as the piece of wood was drawn backwards, revealing the pale face of Andromeda Tonks. At first glance, Remus could tell that the woman was extremely upset about Sirius' incarceration, as her eyes were circled equally with dark and red, due to a lack of sleep and a great deal of crying respectively. Though it was rather out of character for her to behave as such, he could understand the reason behind it more than well enough himself. Out of the three of his cousins, Sirius had always been the closest to Andromeda, so to lose him must have been as devastating for her as it had been for him and Issy.

"Remus?" she questioned, in a quiet tone. It did not surprise the man that she did so, as the house was rather small, and noise carried easily up the staircase, due to the close proximity. Nymphadora, the woman's young daughter, would be in bed by now, and the last thing that Andromeda would have wanted to do would be to wake her, as Sirius had often told him that, once woken by visitors, the child would not return to bed until they had gone. "Remus, what are you doing here?"

"I needed to speak to you." he answered, shrugging his shoulders a little. "I was going to come around earlier, but I had to go and see Olivia, Isabella's sister, to tell her… about…"

"I know." the brunette stopped him, holding her hand up to indicate that he needed to tell her no more about his reasoning. At the confused expression spreading across his face, she elaborated her point. "She sent out the invitations, for the funeral, this morning. It must have been just after you left. She invited me for Sirius' sake, I think, as we have never really gotten along, but I loved Issy. Just as much as you did. I loved her because Sirius did, and that was more than good enough for me."

"Ah." was the only response the man gave to the woman's heartfelt speech, though he acknowledged her point about their love of Issy with a solemn nod of his head. His mind then returned to the task at hand, and he turned, bending down to the floor of the porch. For a moment, it seemed that Andromeda was expecting him to leave, but then she allowed her gaze to travel to Remus' position on the floor, and her mouth dropped wide open, a quiet gasp escaping it.

The moment he realised that she was staring, the shaggy haired man lifted the sleeping child from her basket, causing her to shift around a little, but luckily not causing enough movement to wake her, though he was unsure if that would be possible for anyone, with the current state of tiredness that she was in, after having remained awake for so long. After looking quickly to Sirius' cousin, and seeing her nod of approval, he placed her in her arms.

"She's beautiful." the woman pointed out, wrapping the blanket tighter around the girl, as she finally noticed the chilling wind. Balancing the girl in her left arm, she beckoned to Remus with the right, gesturing for him to enter the house with her. "We'd better go inside, I suppose. It's gotten very cold outside recently, though I suppose that that was to be expected, particularly in this season."

When they had sat down in the living room, the woman rocked the baby in her arms, as the child had now awakened, due to the fact that she did not know the arms in which she was placed, which had jerked her out of her reverie of sleep. Her eyes were fixated on the woman, and her lips pursed in confusion, but she did not cry, merely studied her, looking as if she were committing the new face to memory.

"Issy named you her godmother, when she was still pregnant." the man told his best friend's cousin, seeing her eyebrows raise a little, at the revelation of her new responsibilities to a babe that she had only just caught sight of, two minutes ago at the very most. "She said that Sirius would have wanted you to be, and so she chose you, for the sake of all three of them."

"I suppose that that is a far more important role now, far more than she would have thought that it would, or wanted it to be." Andromeda pointed out, placing a soft kiss on the girl's tiny fingers, as she had reached them up towards her. "And so… do you want me to take the baby?"

For a moment, Remus considered saying yes, that that would be the answer to all his fears. After all, she had done so before, and nine year old Nymphadora was a perfectly decent child, so it was obvious that she was an excellent mother. However, something within him, a sense of duty, told him that he could not do so, and so he gave an answer that would change his life forever.

"No, Andromeda. Charlotte is staying with me."

A/N: Next chapter, or the one after, would anyone be interested in Remus going to see Sirius, and telling him about Lottie? Please review, and tell me!


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